Betsey Brown: a novel

Author: Shange, Ntozake

In 1957, Betsey Brown, 13, desegregates a school with the support of her mother and grandmother.


St. Martin's Press, copyright 1985, 207p.


Booklist Review: Prizewinning poet and playwright Shange has written one previous novel, the lovely Sassafras, Cypress & Indigo. Her second effort is much like the first: both concern growing up female and black, and both are written in a melodious, poetic style. Betsey Brown is set in the late 1950s, when the civil rights movement was sprouting; the place is St. Louis, which captures elements of both the midwestern and southern experience. There is much travail within young Betsey Brown's family, and outside her door there is prejudice that will influence the life of a black girl who is awakening sexually. Although this gentle novel eschews politics and doesn't possess a riveting story line, it offers a savory prose and telling observations on family and individuality. ((Reviewed March 1, 1985))

Publishers Weekly Review: This novel about a black family living in St. Louis in 1957 centers on Betsey, 13, who is restless, wants to "be somebody" and is being bused to a white school. Her mother and grandmother oppose and her father sup ports integration. When the father plans to take Betsey and her siblings to demon strate against a racist hotel, the mother leaves home. PW found that "by depicting and personalizing the racial tensions of the 1950s through the lives of appealing char acters, Shange has produced a memorable, quietly powerful book." (March

Kirkus Reviews /* Starred Review */ Believe it or not, the book that comes to mind again and again while reading Shange's new novel--about growing up black in late-1950s St. Louis--is Kathryn Forbes' Mama's Bank Account, that sweetest of growing-pain/family classics, unpretentiously episodic and reliably heart-warming. Not that Shange's distinctive voice is absent here: there are earthy details, occasional flares of lyricism, and grand chunks of no-nonsense humor. But the primary tones are warmth and affection--as we follow a year or so in the life of the middle-class Brown family: Papa is a doctor, a lover of art and jazz who quizzes the kids every morning on Negro culture; Mama is a social-worker, lighter-skinned and more conventionally proper; Grandma is her mother, always disgruntled about how "black and kinky-headed" her son-in-law is; and the five kids include little pyromaniac Allard, live-in nephew Charlie, and 13-year-old Betsey--who's at the center of most of the vignettes. When the Browns hire a country girl to help out with chores and kids, it's Betsey who sabotages Bernice and gets her fired--a triumph that soon brings shame. The next housemaid candidate is removed by Grandma, who catches Regina and her boyfriend Roscoe giving the kids a demonstration of kissing. ("Y'all were mighty impressed with some low-down niggah mess," Grandma scolds.) And Betsey has the worries and yearnings that go with turning 13: a crush on basketball player Eugene Boyd; "anatomical explorations and beautification" (counting pubic hairs) with Veejay, Charlotte Ann, and white Susan Linda. But the major crises here begin about midway through--when the Brown kids are among those chosen to be, via busings, the first blacks in some white public schools. There are initial fears (fanned by Grandma), an ugly incident or two. More important, the heightened atmosphere highlights the conflict between proud-black Papa and genteel Mama--with Betsey feeling caught in the middle. ("Every time she played music she was a niggah. . . If she wanted to boycott her school, she was a rabble-rouser. If she wanted to eat at Howard Johnson's, she was giving whites more than was their due. No matter what she said or did, it wasn't right.") So Betsey runs away for a day--to the local hairdresser/madam; her return becomes a family miracle; but before the cozy fadeout, there'll be an even more dramatic Papa/Mama split. . . over whether or not the kids should join in a civil-rights demonstration. Especially for the YA audience: a fresh, unself-conscious novel of black middle-class life--not color blind by any means, but free and secure enough to let the Brown family be diverse, funny, and sweetly human.
(Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 1985)



Other titles associated with this book:
Betsy Brown


ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0312134347 : Paperback
061342347X : Glued Binding
0312077270 : Hardcover
0606226974 : DEMCO Turtleback


Credits:
• Hennepin County Public Library
• Baker & Taylor
• American Historical Fiction: An Annotated Guide to Novels for Adults and Young Adults, published by Oryx Press
• Booklist, published by the American Library Association
• Publishers Weekly, A Reed Elsevier Business Information Publication
• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 055018

Daddy says
Ntozake Shange

Author: Shange, Ntozake

Twelve-year-old Lucie-Marie and her older sister Annie Sharon attempt to deal with the death of their mother in a rodeo accident, while hoping to follow in her footsteps as championship riders.


New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, c2003, 192 p.

Booklist Review: Gr. 5-9. The celebrated author of for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf (1977) and other plays and books has written her first YA novel. Unfortunately, the message nearly overwhelms the story. Mama was a rodeo star who died years ago in an accident on her out-of-control horse. Now her daughters, Anne Sharon, 14, and Lucie Marie, 12, growing up on their father's big ranch in East Texas, must cope with their pain and anger and with Daddy's grief as he tries to remember his wife and let her go. Add to the mix wise, perfect Cassie, who loves Dad, reads Tarot cards, and helps them all find their way to healing. If the girls like Cassie, are they disloyal to Mama? The family dynamics are overexplained, heavy with therapy. It's the horse-riding and rodeo stuff that will grab readers. There are exciting details about riding bareback, handling horses, running barrels, roping steers, and there's plenty of wild action in the dynamic, racially diverse rodeo community.
(Reviewed March 15, 2003) -- Hazel Rochman

School Library Journal Review: Gr 6-9–Lucie-Marie and Annie Sharon's mother, a rodeo champion who valued winning above her life, died in an accident years earlier. The novel begins on the family's East Texas ranch with the girls bickering and moves from this comparatively lighthearted exchange into deeper issues and out of them again. Their father, Tie-Down, wants his girls to accept his new love, Cassie, even as he admits he is still grieving for his wife. There is an exciting description of events at a rodeo, with colorful characters and friends vividly drawn and yet all this verve is somehow wasted in this narrative that has no central character or focus to hold readers. Annie Sharon seems to be central for a good part of the book, but the adult voices compete, as does Lucie-Marie's. Tie-Down loves his children, but doesn't hesitate to use his belt so harshly that he raises welts. Cassie tells him clearly that this is unacceptable, but it continues and the topic is dropped. Equally bewildering is the treatment of the wildness of the horse Moncado, which stomped the sisters' mother to death. As both girls feel winning is powerful, Annie Sharon tries to prove she is the horsewoman her mother was by riding the rogue horse. Somewhat belatedly, Tie-Down begins to teach his daughters how to tame him, which begins in one short afternoon and is then left unresolved. Despite strong characters and a lively setting, this novel is disjointed and unsatisfying, which is a shame, since Shange is clearly capable of portraying rivalry and competitive spirit realistically.–Carol A. Edwards, Sonoma County Library, Santa Rosa, CA (Reviewed February 1, 2003) (School Library Journal, vol 49, issue 2, p148)

Publishers Weekly Review: This novel set in Texas offers an insider's view of the African-American rodeo scene, with mixed success. Shange (for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf) vividly conveys the excitement and danger of trick riding and ably expresses the void felt by Cowboy "Tie-Down" and his two daughters, 12-year-old Lucie-Marie and 14-year-old Annie Sharon, after his rodeo-star wife is killed by a temperamental horse. However, at times the author strains too hard to evoke emotions and local color; often her characters' dialogue comes off as clichéd ("Well, you two are Daddy's rough, tough ridin' cutie-pies, that's for sure. And I love you way down deep in my soul"), especially in contrast with the sisters' more serious exchanges. Tension mounts within the family when Annie Sharon suspects that Tie-Down's new girlfriend, Cassie Caruthers ("a slip of a woman, not much bigger than a minute") is trying to fill her mother's boots. Hoping to draw her father's attention back to his family and his renowned late wife, Annie Sharon takes ill-conceived risks on horseback. As might be expected, the results prove disastrous. Annie Sharon realizes that she has gone too far only after her father becomes seriously injured while trying to save her life. The story provides enough action to keep pages turning, but the heart-felt moments are too few. Ages 10-14. (Jan.)
— Staff (Reviewed November 25, 2002) (Publishers Weekly, vol 249, issue 47, p68)

Kirkus Reviews Shange's second effort for children deals with longing, memory, and ambition; unfortunately, the quality of writing is not up to the expected brilliance of the author of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf. Lucie-Marie, 12, and Annie Sharon, 14, live on a ranch in East Texas with their father, Tie-Down, a rancher and rodeo rider; their mother, also a rodeo rider, was killed in a rodeo accident long ago but is still sorely missed. As Tie-Down begins to spend time with a new girlfriend, the girls become jealous for their father's attention—on their own behalf and in defense of their mother's memory. Both girls are skilled riders, but Annie Sharon pushes the limits of safety—to connect with and emulate her mother, to get her father's attention, and for love of the sport. However, many of the big emotional issues are confusing: for example, does Tie-Down ignore the girls only now that he has a new girlfriend, or has he always been distant? The answer is inconsistent, which detracts from the potential emotional realism and understandable pain of either scenario. A constantly shifting narrative viewpoint dilutes individual depth and richness of character and the writing as a whole is stiff and awkward. While this could be enjoyed by rodeo and horse fans—roping, bronco busting, and barrel racing are described in detail—and fills a niche by portraying African-American girls in a western context, actively riding rodeo, as literature, it fails to score. (Fiction. 8-12)
(Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 2002)



ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0689830815


Credits:
• Novelist/EBSCO Publishing
• Baker & Taylor
• MetaMetrics, Inc.
• Booklist, published by the American Library Association
• School Library Journal, A Reed Elsevier Business Information Publication
• Publishers Weekly, A Reed Elsevier Business Information Publication
• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Added to NoveList: 20030420
• TID: 082504

Ellington was not a street
written by Ntozake Shange ; illustrations by Kadir Nelson

Author: Shange, Ntozake

A poem from the author's first collection of poetry pays tribute to the community of talented artists that frequented her childhood home.


New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2004, 40 p.

Kirkus Reviews /* Starred Review */ Deeply colored paintings enrich this homage to African-American men who made history and influenced culture, including Duke Ellington, Paul Robeson, Dizzy Gillespie, and W.E.B. DuBois. Nelson's setting is a home, filled with the folks who made it happen, as observed by a small girl whose presence, greeting the guests or peeking around the corners, adds the child's point of view. The poetic text is spare, with only a few words on each spread, but they match the majesty of the scene. Children will need context to understand the brief lines, and happily, an author's note provides it. In bell hooks style, none of the lines or names are capitalized, nor do they have punctuation. Intended for children today who know these names as commemorative plaques on buildings or streets, the deceptively simple text reveals the feel of the Harlem Renaissance: "Politics as necessary as collards, music even in our dreams." A tribute to what these men did for African-Americans, indeed all Americans, is soulfully and succinctly stated: "Our doors opened like our daddy's arms, held us safe and loved." Exquisite. (Picture book. 4-8)
(Kirkus Reviews, November 15, 2003)



Other related features:

1. Awards (Best Fiction) - Children's -> Best Fiction -> Literary -> ALA Notable Children's Books -> 2005 -> Middle Readers Category

2. Awards (Best Fiction) - Children's -> Best Fiction -> Literary -> Coretta Scott King Award -> Coretta Scott King Award (Illustrators)

3. Awards (Best Fiction) - Children's -> Best Fiction -> Literary -> Parents' Choice Award -> Picture Books category -> 2004 -> Gold Awards

4. Awards (Best Fiction) - Easy -> Best Fiction -> Literary -> Coretta Scott King Award -> Coretta Scott King Award (Illustrators)

5. Awards (Best Fiction) - Easy -> Best Fiction -> Literary -> Parents' Choice Award -> Picture Books category -> 2004 -> Gold Awards

6. Teaching with Fiction - African-American Literature: The Best of the Best


Other Contributors:
Nelson, Kadir: illustrator

ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0689828845


Credits:
• Novelist/EBSCO Publishing
• Baker & Taylor
• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Added to NoveList: 20040520
• TID: 124110

Liliane: resurrection of the daughter

Author: Shange, Ntozake

Presents an exploration of one Black woman's psyche by her friends, lovers, and herself, set against racially divided Mississippi and Queens, New York


New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994, 288 p.

Publishers Weekly Review: Like her first two novels (Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo; Betsey Brown), Shange's third offers insightful portraits of several young black women, most notably of Liliane, a visual artist. The book's narrative structure, which intersperses vivid prose-poetry with terse dramatic dialogue, is complex, challenging-and sometimes difficult to navigate. Monologues by more than a half-dozen voices collide in cacophany nearly as often as they blend in harmony, and the transcript-like conversations between Liliane and her psychoanalyst are difficult to follow because they're presented with minimal regard to speaker identification. These dialogues reveal Liliane's strong discomfort with racial issues (like Shange, she was raised in an upper-middle class household) and her seismic fury at her mother, whose disappearance when Liliane was a child, it turns out, was due not to her untimely death but to her running off with a white man. Meanwhile, Liliane's voice, as well as those of her friends and lovers, interrupts the psychoanalytic sessions to comment on Liliane's volatile behavior-her propensity to be drawn in many directions as she seeks to assimilate with cultures domestic and foreign, black and white, rich and poor. (Liliane wants to learn "every language, slave language, any black person in the Western Hemisphere ever spoke," remarks Victor-Jesus Maria, one of her lovers: "She had to believe there was a way of talking herself out of 500 years of disdain.") In her apparent determination to make Liliane lovable and universal ("We were all blessed," comments one character, "to have the privilege to love her... anybody's colored child, anybody's daughter"), Shange emphasizes her heroine's most appealing qualities: independence, sensuality, intelligence. Still, Liliane remains marvelously complex, a chameleon at once archetypal and idiosyncratic, a woman whose weighty grapplings with the psychic and social forces that both drive and sunder her are leavened with a wicked sense of humor: "I'm not going to come out of my house," she promises at one point, "until there are some hip black people in outer space." 85,000 first printing; author tour. (Nov.)

Library Journal Review: Exotic and gritty like its heroine, pretentious and yet painfully real, Shange's third novel (following Betsey Brown, LJ 5/15/85) revels in its counterpoints and surprises. Troubled, alluring artist Liliane moves with grace but carries the baggage of familiar unrest and personal tragedy. Shange reveals her intriguing protagonist through her distinctive choices of lovers and friends, which alternate with conversations between Liliane and her analyst as Liliane searches for her lost mother. Evocations of genteel black Queens, vibrant and dangerous Alphabet City, and moody, sensuous Morocco provide a vivid backdrop for episodes of sex, storytelling, childhood drama, and adult thirst. Musical, erotic, and scathingly reactive to racial history, this is a natural for admirers of Anais Nin (to whom Shange makes a nod) and of Shange's more celebrated contemporaries Paule Marshall and Toni Morrison. Warmly recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/94.]-Janet Ingraham, Worthington P.L., Ohio

Kirkus Reviews /* Starred Review */ Poet, playwright, and novelist Shange (Betsey Brown, 1985, etc.) offers a portrait of a young black woman's growing-up in her characteristic confessional-mosaic style, but with a deeper and more contemplative cast than in her earlier works. Liliane Lincoln was raised as a child of privilege in the Eastern Seaboard's upper-middle-class black community, the daughter of a judge who expected her to attend a good university, marry well, and carry on the struggle for respectability in a racist world. Though she has indeed become an intelligent, passionate visual artist, Liliane finds herself still struggling to untie the psychic knots engendered by her father's defensiveness, the fears and prejudices of her social milieu, and, most importantly, the death of her beautiful mother when Liliane was a child. Only through a series of probing therapy sessions does Liliane begin to realize that her mother didn't die but left her family for a white man, and that her father preferred to pronounce his wife dead than to acknowledge this fact. Liliane's sessions with her therapist alternate with the colorful, impressionistic recollections of her best friends: Bernadette Reeves, a scrappy New Jersey girl who describes Liliane's high-class social life with a mixture of envy and outrage; Roxie Golightly, a Southern belle who dreams of a rich husband but is murdered by her Cuban lover; Lollie Malveaux, Liliane's earthy cousin, who views the secretive Lincoln family with healthy skepticism; and Lollie's sister, Hyacinthe, whose vengeful fantasies of murdering white "crackers" land her in an asylum. Liliane adds her own vivid evocations of such former lovers as Jean-RenÉ, a luscious Guadaloupean concert pianist; Victor-JÉsus Maria, a Puerto Rican with radical political views; and Sawyer Malveaux III, a rebellious son of old Creole money who is shot to death in East St. Louis. The result is a multifaceted portrait of a complex young woman -- and a multicultural generation -- coming of age in America. Flamboyant, passionate, and richly textured -- an original and memorable work.
(Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 1994)



Other titles associated with this book:
Resurrection of a daughter
Daughter's resurrection
Lily Anne


ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0312113102


Credits:
• Hennepin County Public Library
• Baker & Taylor
• Publishers Weekly, A Reed Elsevier Business Information Publication
• Library Journal, A Reed Elsevier Business Information Publication
• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 006591

Sassafras, Cypress and Indigo: a novel

Author: Shange, Ntozake

St. Martin's Press, copyright 1982, 224p.
Credits:
• Hennepin County Public Library
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 055019

Whitewash
Illustrated by Michael Sporn

Author: Shange, Ntozake

A young African-American girl is traumatized when a gang attacks her and her brother on their way home from school and spray-paints her face white. Based on a true story.


New York: Walker, copyright 1997, unpaged.

School Library Journal Review: PreS-Gr 2--Helene-Angel has to wait for her older brother Mauricio to walk her home from school. Neither of them like this arrangement. One day the Hawks, a gang of white thugs, beat up Mauricio and spray white paint on Helene-Angel's face. "I was dripping white. Really itchy, stinging white paint covered me wherever my brown skin used to be." Her grandmother's comforting words are not enough to help the girl handle her fear and humiliation. She closes herself away from her family and friends for a week. When her classmates come to the house to escort her back to school, Helene-Angel realizes that others care about her pain. Adults could use this story for a lesson in tolerance, resolving unanswered questions, and preparing young children for some of life's cruel realities. The large colorful gouache illustrations with bold black outlines and deep red borders have been done by an animation producer. Some facial expressions convey strong emotions while others are simple lines, characteristic of cartoon art. The full-length award-winning video is probably the better medium for this story, but the book will be available to a wider audience.--Marie Wright, University Library, Indianapolis, IN

Publishers Weekly Review: An African American girl and her brother are the victims of a disturbing racial attack in this ripped-from-the-headlines picture book. Helene-Angel and her older brother, Mauricio, are taunted and assaulted by a gang of white thugs. The assailants beat up Mauricio and coat Helene-Angel's face with stinging white paint, claiming to teach her "how to be white." The pair hide indoors from reporters and stay home from school for days; not until Helene-Angel's classmates come to visit in a show of solidarity and support are she and Mauricio able to return to their routine. Readers will likely share playwright Shange's anger and sorrow at this event, based on similar attacks in large cities over the past few years. Her characters speak in tones of shock and pain that clearly convey the seriousness of the issues here. The illustrations are reproductions of animation cels from a videotape version of the story. The rounded shapes and somewhat oversimplified lines of the characters' bodies stand out against handsomely mottled backgrounds, providing dramatic contrast. This honest look at a racial incident may aid children in discussing their own fears as well as possible solutions. Ages 7-10. (Oct.) Fiction



Other related features:

1. Annotated Book List - African-American Children's Authors


Other Contributors:
Sporn, Michael

Other titles associated with this book:
White wash


ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0802784917
0802784909


Credits:
• Hennepin County Public Library
• Baker & Taylor
• School Library Journal, A Reed Elsevier Business Information Publication
• Publishers Weekly, A Reed Elsevier Business Information Publication
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 083923